Amid skyrocketing oil, gasoline, coal, and electricity (coming to a neighborhood near you) prices, 2008 offers Americans quite serious and stark choices between knowledgeable, impassioned, and thoughtful candidates when it comes to finding paths toward a prosperous 21st century economy, on the one side, and Fossil-Fool candidates focused on tightening our shackles to the ever-more costly (pollution, financial, otherwise) and archaic oil-coal based energy system.

One of these stark choices comes in California’s 46th district, where Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook is running against ten-term Congressman Dana Rohrbacher.

Debbie was one of the first on the Energy Smart Act Blue page. Join me after the fold for some indications as to why.

Just how much of the pump price of gasoline is attributable to the war in Iraq? A dollar? Three dollars? None. That conversation recently swirled around me and, one one point, someone commented that well over half (or more than $2) of America’s $4.10 gallon of gas is due to the war. Another person asked “Is that right?” And, after pulling out some hair from my head, my response was both short and then long.

The short:

Two dollars a gallon is, perhaps, as good a swag as anyone’s. … I think.

Earlier today, someone asserted that well over half (or more than $2) of America’s $4.10 gallon of gas is due to the war. Another person asked “Is that right?” And, after pulling out some hair from my head, my response was both short and then long.

Part of the discussion: the Freshman Energy Smart Acceleration (FESA) Act.

FESA is a package of suggested programs that could provide a rallying point for the freshmen (and women) class of 2009, to join together for passage a set of legislative initiatives to help spark an Energy Smart renaissance across the United States.Continue reading →

Have you heard? Oilman T Boone Pickens is not only committed to planting the world’s largest wind farm in the fertile soil of Texas. He is not only committed to working to stringing a meaningful electrical grid to move electricity from that wind farm to lush markets for harvesting serious profits. T Boone has a plan to save America (while making a bundle) and has committed some serious dough to convincing Americans that his plan is the path to a better future. T Boone restates forcefully what George W Bush said in the 2006 State of the Union address about America’s oil addiction. According to T Boone,

America is addicted to foreign oil.

It’s an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and a people.

The addiction has worsened for decades and now it’s reached a point of crisis.

World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to find and there just isn’t enough of it to keep up with demand.

The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone.

Maybe Newt and the Republicans should be listening to people who actually know at least something about energy?

T Boone Pickens isn’t stopping with defining a problem, he is outlining (forcefully) a proposed solution path. ThePickensPlan is a concept for reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, to carve into the $700 billion+ per year heading out of the United States to ensure top-offed McSUVs. As T Boone expresses it, “the largest transfer of wealth in human history.” The PickensPlan has a mixture of extremely good and important elements, and concepts that simply don’t comport with energy reality. Let’s take a brief look at some of this.Continue reading →